Burn victim set to make history with new face

A 14-YEAR-OLD girl from the Midlands, who suffered severe burns as an infant, is set to make medical history as the world’s first recipient of a face transplant.

Cork-born consultant plastic surgeon Peter Butler, who is pioneering the technique at the Royal Free Hospital in London, will assess the teenager in the next few weeks to determine whether she is suitable for the operation.

“She is the most remarkable person you could ever meet,” the girl’s mother said. “You see her personality first, long before you see her scars.”

The Junior Certificate student volunteered for the historic 10-hour transplant, a procedure that involves removing the face from a four-hour-old corpse and placing it on that of a living patient.

Preliminary assessments will also be conducted on three female burns victims from England, Turkey and America who have applied for facial transplants.

A series of clinical and psychiatric tests will also be carried out to evaluate the risk of mental trauma to which the teenager may be exposed if she were to assume a new identity overnight.

While playing with matches as a toddler, the Irish girl set the family car on fire and suffered extensive burns which left her with scars that could not be fully treated, despite years of reconstructive surgery in a Dublin hospital.

Dublin-educated Mr Butler, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, has called for a public debate about facial transplants because of the widespread resistance to the concept of walking around with a dead person’s face.

He said that, despite public caution about face transplants, he had been overwhelmed with letters from people who want to donate their faces after they have died.

Mr Butler said the estimated stg£50,000 procedure was “straightforward and a natural development of organ transplant technology”.

“The risk of failure is 3% to 4%, maybe even less. The technology is there, the biggest obstacle is public opinion and funding,” he added.